Post by The Thought Police (admin) on Jan 6, 2017 5:03:27 GMT -5
The Catcher in the Rye Essay
Louie Cattanach
“The Catcher in the Rye” by Salinger is a novel about the main character, Holden Caulfield, who is struggling with depression and is deluded about the transition from childhood to adulthood. It is important to consider how the author shows this and how the author uses it to address the novels key concerns.
Salinger introduces the reader to the root of all of Holden’s problems in the opening chapters. He does this by telling us about the death of Holden’s younger brother Allie through the point of view of Holden. Allie died of leukaemia at a young age, which is a key part of Holden growing up as Allie’s death in Holden’s life has been highly significant. We can see that this has left Holden physically and emotionally scarred “they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage” Holden can’t properly make a fist again so he is physically scarred but also emotionally scarred as well as he has lost Allie. Clearly this has had an impact on Holden’s mental health as Salinger then introduces us to a symbol in the novel. Holden buys a red hunting hat which reminds him of Allie as it is the same colour as Allie’s hair. When Holden wears this hunting hat he feels safe and isolated from the rest of the world. Holden calls the hat a “people shooting hat” which shows how he feels safe from other people. So overall we can see why Allie’s death has left Holden feeling isolated and how it has permanently scarred him for life.
Another way that Salinger shows how Holden is deluded is when he introduces another effective symbol “Thomsen Hill” to symbolise Holden’s isolation. Holden goes up to “Thomsen Hill” to move away from everyone in the school and isolate himself as far away as he can, which is at the top of the hill, to make him feel safe and protected from others. “I was standing way the hell up on top of Thomsen Hill, right next to this crazy cannon” When Holden is at the top of the hill it makes him feel like a god, looking down on people, but is also making him feel safe from other people who will criticise him. This links to Holden’s view of the phonies. We first hear about Holden’s view of phonies when he uses the word “phoney” when talking about Mr Spencer. He uses this word to characterize insincere people and when Spencer uses the word “grand”. Holden dislikes two faced people like his head teacher who only shakes hands with certain people. This shows us that Holden is cynical of the world and is unable to see good in anything and is also trying to push everyone away from him, therefore making him isolated, which Holden believes that this will protect him from other people, making him delusional.
One other way that Salinger tells us how Holden is delusional is when he uses another effective symbol of “The Ducks and the Duck Pond” which symbolize Holden’s transition from childhood to adulthood which gives us an insight of Holden’s mental health. This symbol is a re-curing motif throughout the novel. When the pond freezes it suggests Holden’s childhood coming to an end, abruptly. Holden fantasizes that someone will look after the ducks when the pond freezes. He imagines that someone will come and take them away.” I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, down near Central Park south. I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was, where did the ducks go. I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I wondered if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something. Or if they just flew away.” This suggests that Holden believes that someone will come and look after him when he transitions from a child to an adult, but this is not true making Holden deluded about this.
We begin to see that Holden is realizing that he is deluded when he has conversations with his old friend Sally Hayes “All you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to buy a goddam Cadillac”. Even though, Holden anxieties about the school are worse than a normal teenager. We find more about Holden’s depression when he is “flunking” his subjects at school and when he gets kicked out of his school and Holden almost finds out that his depression is creating this when Holden says to Sally “I don’t hardly get anything out of anything. I’m in bad shape. I’m in lousy shape.” Regardless of Holden understanding that he is going insane, Holden cannot see any way to help this and then goes back into his fantasy world of Holden and Sally going somewhere else and living the American Dream. But Sally thinks that this is ridiculous and when she tells Holden this, he gets annoyed and pushes her away from him, which shows us how Holden is delusional about this fantasy world.
In the final chapters of the novel we find out that Holden realizes that he has been delusional all along when he says: “if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off” which shows us that he finally realizes that he cannot protect all of the children like he said he wanted to earlier in the novel when he wanted to be “the catcher in the rye” which symbolizes Holden catching all of the children in the rye field before they fall off the cliff. We can finally see that Holden does not believe that he can be “the catcher in the rye” and so he now knows that he has been delusional about everything all of this time. We can see how Holden is delusional as he believes that he too is delusional.
In conclusion we can see that Holden is a delusional character through Salinger’s effective techniques like symbols to symbolize different things about Holden as a character. We can see this when Salinger talks about his transition from childhood to adulthood. Also we can see how Holden is delusional when we look at the different key concerns for Holden, such as: where the ducks go, the phonies, etc. In my opinion, I believe that Holden is delusional as he even believes so himself, that he is in fact delusional in the final chapters of the novel.
Louie Cattanach
“The Catcher in the Rye” by Salinger is a novel about the main character, Holden Caulfield, who is struggling with depression and is deluded about the transition from childhood to adulthood. It is important to consider how the author shows this and how the author uses it to address the novels key concerns.
Salinger introduces the reader to the root of all of Holden’s problems in the opening chapters. He does this by telling us about the death of Holden’s younger brother Allie through the point of view of Holden. Allie died of leukaemia at a young age, which is a key part of Holden growing up as Allie’s death in Holden’s life has been highly significant. We can see that this has left Holden physically and emotionally scarred “they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage” Holden can’t properly make a fist again so he is physically scarred but also emotionally scarred as well as he has lost Allie. Clearly this has had an impact on Holden’s mental health as Salinger then introduces us to a symbol in the novel. Holden buys a red hunting hat which reminds him of Allie as it is the same colour as Allie’s hair. When Holden wears this hunting hat he feels safe and isolated from the rest of the world. Holden calls the hat a “people shooting hat” which shows how he feels safe from other people. So overall we can see why Allie’s death has left Holden feeling isolated and how it has permanently scarred him for life.
Another way that Salinger shows how Holden is deluded is when he introduces another effective symbol “Thomsen Hill” to symbolise Holden’s isolation. Holden goes up to “Thomsen Hill” to move away from everyone in the school and isolate himself as far away as he can, which is at the top of the hill, to make him feel safe and protected from others. “I was standing way the hell up on top of Thomsen Hill, right next to this crazy cannon” When Holden is at the top of the hill it makes him feel like a god, looking down on people, but is also making him feel safe from other people who will criticise him. This links to Holden’s view of the phonies. We first hear about Holden’s view of phonies when he uses the word “phoney” when talking about Mr Spencer. He uses this word to characterize insincere people and when Spencer uses the word “grand”. Holden dislikes two faced people like his head teacher who only shakes hands with certain people. This shows us that Holden is cynical of the world and is unable to see good in anything and is also trying to push everyone away from him, therefore making him isolated, which Holden believes that this will protect him from other people, making him delusional.
One other way that Salinger tells us how Holden is delusional is when he uses another effective symbol of “The Ducks and the Duck Pond” which symbolize Holden’s transition from childhood to adulthood which gives us an insight of Holden’s mental health. This symbol is a re-curing motif throughout the novel. When the pond freezes it suggests Holden’s childhood coming to an end, abruptly. Holden fantasizes that someone will look after the ducks when the pond freezes. He imagines that someone will come and take them away.” I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, down near Central Park south. I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was, where did the ducks go. I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I wondered if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something. Or if they just flew away.” This suggests that Holden believes that someone will come and look after him when he transitions from a child to an adult, but this is not true making Holden deluded about this.
We begin to see that Holden is realizing that he is deluded when he has conversations with his old friend Sally Hayes “All you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to buy a goddam Cadillac”. Even though, Holden anxieties about the school are worse than a normal teenager. We find more about Holden’s depression when he is “flunking” his subjects at school and when he gets kicked out of his school and Holden almost finds out that his depression is creating this when Holden says to Sally “I don’t hardly get anything out of anything. I’m in bad shape. I’m in lousy shape.” Regardless of Holden understanding that he is going insane, Holden cannot see any way to help this and then goes back into his fantasy world of Holden and Sally going somewhere else and living the American Dream. But Sally thinks that this is ridiculous and when she tells Holden this, he gets annoyed and pushes her away from him, which shows us how Holden is delusional about this fantasy world.
In the final chapters of the novel we find out that Holden realizes that he has been delusional all along when he says: “if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off” which shows us that he finally realizes that he cannot protect all of the children like he said he wanted to earlier in the novel when he wanted to be “the catcher in the rye” which symbolizes Holden catching all of the children in the rye field before they fall off the cliff. We can finally see that Holden does not believe that he can be “the catcher in the rye” and so he now knows that he has been delusional about everything all of this time. We can see how Holden is delusional as he believes that he too is delusional.
In conclusion we can see that Holden is a delusional character through Salinger’s effective techniques like symbols to symbolize different things about Holden as a character. We can see this when Salinger talks about his transition from childhood to adulthood. Also we can see how Holden is delusional when we look at the different key concerns for Holden, such as: where the ducks go, the phonies, etc. In my opinion, I believe that Holden is delusional as he even believes so himself, that he is in fact delusional in the final chapters of the novel.